The Measured Golf Podcast
With so many amazing things happening in the Measured Golf Community, we have decided to start a podcast to discuss all of the amazing things that we are seeing have a positive impact on our athletes. Whether it be Ground Reaction Forces, Golf Biomechanics, or strategies for making the most out of your limited practice time, we hope that this podcast becomes a resource for you to finally become the player you know you can be!
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The Measured Golf Podcast
New Frontiers in Golf: Bridging Curiosity, Science, and Skill
Unlock the secrets to enhancing your golf game by tuning into a thought-provoking conversation with Dr. Mark Bolt, a trailblazer in golf performance and physiology. Broadcasting from Lisbon, Portugal, Dr. Bolt sheds light on the often-overlooked aspects of golf training, including the impact of growth cycles, inherited beliefs, and the normalization of injuries among young athletes. Discover how his innovative Bowl 3D capture system revolutionizes the analysis of movement patterns in adolescent collegiate golfers, offering insights that challenge conventional approaches to coaching and development.
Explore the evolution of technology in golf training and its dual-edged influence on player skill acquisition. With insights from the origins of Advanced Motion Measurement software to its integration into modern systems, we delve into the balance between data-driven coaching and intuitive skill development. Uncover how excessive reliance on analytics can lead to "de-skilling," and learn about the critical importance of physiological buffers that help manage stress and optimize performance, particularly in high-stakes environments.
Our discussion also ventures into unexpected territories, such as the influence of dental health on physical performance and the profound impact of visual systems and ground reaction forces. Embrace the art of inquiry and curiosity, fostering a safe environment for exploration and failure, much like how early sports pioneers intuitively understood performance principles that are now validated by modern science. Join us as we redefine the responsibility of golf practice, emphasizing intention and personal accountability, while championing a shift in mindset that prioritizes wellness and continuous learning in the dynamic world of golf.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Measured Golf Podcast, where I, michael Dutro, am fortunate and privileged to be joined by some of the best minds in the game and we talk all things golf.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's golf swings, sometimes it's approach to playing golf, sometimes it might even be something that doesn't seem nearly as related to golf as breathing, but sometimes that's where we wind up, and, in our search for talking about all things that lead to golf performance, I really wanted to have a guest that I look up to a lot, has certainly been a mentor to me during my short career and somebody that I really think brings a lot of value to the world of golf instruction and even things that maybe wouldn't be labeled as instruction but also still move the needle forward. And that person I'm talking about is the man in the shadows but a lot of us are aware of, but none other than dr mark bolt. Mark, we're thrilled to have the. Uh, I've looked forward to this for a long time. I've been a great admirer, so thank you so much for joining us, all the way from spain, I believe um well, first of all, thank you, michael, for the invitation.
Speaker 2:You're very welcome. I'm in portugal, is you and?
Speaker 1:I oh okay perfect.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, I mean I'll let you. I'm sure my spanish friends would be deeply offended by, but they're very closely. Obviously, portugal is a neighbor of spain, so I'm in lisbon, which is, if you haven been, it's a beautiful place. I'm currently there with the golf program for a couple of days with their players, and it's one of my favorite places to visit Portugal. It really is spectacular. So, but anyway, it's great to be here and looking forward to kind of speaking with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw a social media post earlier today with you over there and I apologize about messing that up off the jump, but I saw where you were. It looked like using I believe it's your bowl 3D capture with that player and I think maybe I don't do this with a lot of my guests, but I think this would be great to do with you. But what is it you're over there doing, how are you doing it and what kind of tools are you using to kind of work with this player? Just so people have a better understanding of kind of what you do?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think this is a context is so valuable and you know, without context it becomes very challenging. So this particular group is a group of kind of collegiate based players that are adolescent golfers. So much of what I'm doing with these particular players yesterday, today and tomorrow morning is kind of really looking at kind of how they're moving and really kind of why they move the way they do. So. Adolescence is one of many, many reasons why it's such a such a disruptive phase we go through. Look at the three phases of adolescence, kind of 0 to 7, 7 to 14, 1 to 21. It's kind of considered the kind of three main phases within those kind of growth cycles a little later for girls, kind of 22, 23 for the females and so what. What I'm looking at is initially kind of how they move and in some ways that's. It's kind of like the kind of what, why and how. Let's look at kind of what you do through obviously the um, the system that I use. Then we look at why you do what you do. That can really take us in many different directions. Examples again just where you're at for that growth cycle.
Speaker 2:It may be more the beliefs we have. So we know, within physiology, our beliefs drive our behaviors. So movement is a form of behavior. It's a very expressive form of behavior, movement. So physiology is very much behavior driven, but our beliefs very much drive those behaviors. So, to give you an example this morning, this really applies to all of us. We all have beliefs which we hold very closely dear to us, based on whatever who you've been exposed to, who you perceive to be really especially if you're younger, a developing player Excuse me, sorry, michael that you really kind of looked up to as being the really um kind of revered human in many ways.
Speaker 2:And so in this particular player's case he was just exploring that almost um, um, why he chose to believe, um, the way he saw the world that way. So in many ways what he was trying to do was actually create an issue is the kind of short answer behind that. So the concepts he had based on the belief systems that he had inherited through someone else. So look at beliefs, you normally inherit them rather than develop them. So beliefs you normally inherit as a younger, kind of prepubescent in many cases you believe based on herence and that kind of stuff, and so he very much saw the world that way. So therefore, what he was trying to do um create the issue and he had a stress fracture in his spine which is not to digress too much. I mean we've almost normalized um that feeling bad is normal. We've almost now normalized that you have to have something. You know what do you have? I have a stress fracture. I have a wrist issue. That's not normal. Normal was getting to the 90s, being medication free and being um um surgically free. In many ways that's normal. But we kind of now normalize being feeding unwell or feeding having stress fractures is normal behavior. It's absolutely not normal behavior. So anyway, so to kind of bookend that part of discussion, this guy um developed a stress fracture through a belief system that he was trying to move in a certain way based on a value he inherited from whoever it was many years ago. So the bookend is he now has a stress fracture in his spine which is not normal behavior.
Speaker 2:And then other players for example, we just looked at the last player I saw today you look at say, within growth, that the spine segmentally is the last segment to grow. So we get these kind of big, long arms and legs and relatively speaking, the spine is the last main skeletal segment to develop. So in essence he has long arms, long legs and still a somewhat prepubescent spine. So much of his movement is being influenced by this somewhat disproportionate skeletal system he has through the growth cycle. So that will obviously catch up as he kind of gets in towards the back end of that kind of growth cycle. So there's many reasons why we do what we do. That's two of many examples, slightly kind of booking in some ways the influence of growth, a belief system.
Speaker 2:And then really what we look to establish then Mike is okay, based on what we know. So, okay, we, you know, we kind of established how you move. We then kind of start to explore why you move that way. It then comes back to well, okay, based on what you now know, how can you improve this? So then I've we very much start to then look at, okay, how can you? You being the keyword hit not how can I, how can you now improve this um? So then we start to really go to that more, the exploration phase of of learning. How do we start to explore in many formats?
Speaker 2:Explore conceptually, uh, explore um within movement and explore through training, say, for example, what the guys would do in the gym, explore more on their behaviors, for example. So you know, we know, again, physiology is very much behavior driven. Um, you can't out train a poor behavior, like you can't out supplement poor nutrition, that kind of approach to the physiology. Um, so that would be the kind of the very course um answer to that question let's look at what you do, let's establish why you do it and then, once we've established why you do what you do, um, so you're looking for, like the what's driving this. In science they're called mechanisms what's the mechanism behind x? So we look at the what's, what's the true driver of why you move and behave that way, and then, based on what we know, how can you then resolve this? So, as far as the system I use, as you mentioned, very kind, it's my own software system, so that I developed back in the early part of 2010, 2011, as it was now. So the last kind, of 30 years.
Speaker 1:Can I ask a quick question about?
Speaker 2:your system. It doesn't need to be quick.
Speaker 1:I mean no offense by this question because, I've gotten in trouble with this one before, but is your system similar to the AMM system?
Speaker 2:So AMM was software. So look at, say, stephen, phil Cheatham, who were the developers of AMM, that was a software system. So they used similar hardware, the Polyhemus hardware, albeit a different Polyhemus system way back then. So AMM, so Advanced Motion Measurement, I think it was called a measurement of motion. So apologies to Steve if I've mixed that up they were the software developers, obviously now used by TPI, so it's kind of TPI 3D. I think it was still called or may still be called through, obviously the guys in TPI. So my software is, you could argue it's an expansion of and it's an evolution of AMM, what it was back in, say, the early 2000s. So AMM, developed so well by Phil and Steve, obviously then ceased to trade. I think it was in 2015, 2014,. I think it was so. Again, if I'm off on my dates I apologize. Like 2015, 2014, I think it was so. Again, if I'm off on my dates, I apologize.
Speaker 1:But so they were the software developers, rather than say that the hardware um producers, who are a company called polymers one thing that I would like to give you a massive compliment on when it comes to your software and, as a matter of fact, I'm I'm speaking a little bit out loud right now, but I've used a, and I don't want to. I don't want to say the name, cause I don't want to compare and contrast, but I use a different uh markerless, uh phone based uh capture system, uh, to do a little bit of looking under the hood with some measurements and things like that. And the thing that they do really well is they create an avatar, and I'm a massive fan of the avatar because I've shown enough people videos of themselves swinging a golf club and they're totally distracted with how they look overweight or whatever the case may be, and that totally throws off anything I can say. So I like that the avatar takes the focus off of judgment in terms of how they appear in the video. They appear in the video, but the thing that you do so well is that you actually port, you visualize and show the actual skeleton of the human within your software, and I've done a lot of training and work with Dr Joe Lacaze from Rotex Motion and, like Joe always says, can you point to it?
Speaker 1:And he's always referencing the skeletal system and when he in his opinion, when you're coaching other people, you need to be able to point to the thing you're asking them to change how it moves. So with your software and the 3D representation of the skeletal system, I really think that's a home run and I think that that's a point of distinction, because it makes it much more accurate when we're showing thing, showing people how things move, because we're showing them the actual anatomical part yeah, I mean it needs to be truly representative of what they do and how they move.
Speaker 2:So again, if they can't relate to this and they don't see meaning, they look at it, go. But that's just not me, it's a very coarse representation. I think it just devalues then their experience. And you look at, say you know we are, through design, visual-based learners. Over half of our brain is allocated to vision and movement. So how the brain has evolved through since kind of day one of civilization is allocated to vision and movement. So there's kind of clues within our brain as to why we are visual based learners. So in many ways how you perceive what you see but then very much influence then you to move in, um, whatever way it is we're discussing. So if you have an animation now called meshes is the is the very precise definition, uh, so it's called a mesh, um, if the mesh is not realistic to how you and I see how you move, then it just, I think, devalues and then removes meaning from the experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think it's really good and I definitely think the industry is moving more into a world where there's less standing there without any kind of measuring device and saying that looks pretty good.
Speaker 1:And now the young people who are coming to you and coming to me, they're wanting to see this data and they're wanting to see how that data influences the golf ball. Because, at the end of the day, we're still teaching a game and we're having a very in-depth conversation about how we view the game, but it is still a game, and what we have to be able to do as coaches, in my opinion, is to say, hey, I think you need to do X, but the reason we're doing X is so that the golf ball does Y, and I think we always kind of have to bring it back to helping that athlete get the golf ball to behave the way they want it to behave. And then, where I think you come in and do a bang-up job or somebody who's looking at the motion, it's okay. Well, now they're achieving the task and they're doing what's being asked of them, but are they doing it in a safe and effective way for them?
Speaker 2:and when you marry those two things, you really find some really high performance, and that's what I love about the approach you take to it I think it really comes again, um, kind of back to that kind of context is when you, when, when you have um using the example that the players I've seen today again, um, it always starts with how can I help? How can I help today, what questions do you have and how do you want to use your time today? And we have this information, player x, how would you like to use it? Um, so there always needs to be a question aligned to the information. Rather than we have this information, let's try and fit a question to the information, which is a very, very different approach.
Speaker 2:So for me, it's how do we use information the best, answer the questions you have, really based on your experiences, your observations, the aspirations you have, for example, um, so for me, it's you know, you look at, really, the role of data is very defined. For me, michael just allows a more informed discussion. We have this data and all it does. It then allows more informed discussions based on it's still the best model is a blank sheet of paper. You're here, you want to get there. How do we kind of fill the gaps in? Well, this information we have now allows a much more precise, a more accurate discussion now based on how do we kind of advance you based on whatever, again, aspirations you have.
Speaker 2:But I think again to be mindful and I always try and provide, as best I can, a real balance. That you look at it, there's never a solution just to trade in life. The idea of a solution doesn't exist. There's always a trade-off, there's a cost of doing business, always. So the cost of business in some ways with, say, as you say, some of the younger guys now coming through, there's that lovely trade between knowledge and know-how and a lot of guys have wonderful knowledge not, but perhaps don't have the the comparable know-how.
Speaker 2:You know how you use the information is still a tremendous, probably of more value. So you can look at it in many ways. You and I can frame this. Would you sooner have someone with less information but has tremendous know-how how to use it? Or a player or, sorry, a coach, with the most advanced system and don't know how to use it? I know which one I would soon spend time around. Um, so it's that lovely trade you get between you know, having the knowledge, which is very much the information that we have, but then having that know-how, which is the early phase of wisdom in some ways.
Speaker 1:But then how do you love this quote? You're gonna love this quote. It's an I think it's an american quote, but I think it's right up your alley. You ready? Knowledge plus experience equals wisdom yeah, I mean you could, you could add many words into that really, um, but that's kind of what you're talking about right is like, yeah, and that's that's what I think is difficult, because I'm so glad you brought this up and I'm sorry to jump in there, but I think what you're talking about is something that's very important.
Speaker 1:Players in my opinion, the players I've worked with and I've worked with some very, very good players players always think that they need to become a coach, to become a better player, meaning that they feel like they need to understand everything to understand what they need to do better. And I feel, like so many young people, they're so used to having advanced baseball stats and fantasy football stats and they're so used to this data stream that they think that they really really really want lots of data when it comes to their golf game and their golf swing and their understanding of data when it comes to their golf game and their golf swing and their understanding. But, to your point, you can understand perfectly well how to execute a golf swing from a kinesiology type basis, but if you've never done it before, you're probably still not going to shoot even par your first time you do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it really comes back to there's a something in skill acquisition called de-skilling. To, um, there's a there's a something in skill acquisition called de-skilling, which is very prevalent in this current time as you and I speak, where often what may happen is the data gets better, well defined, better, based on what who defines. If it's better or not, it's a different discussion. But the player gets worse and that's very prevalent now. They're often they might have better performance markers, better movement profiles, for example, but they just can't relate to that. They can't create meaning. So one of my favorite questions may be could you move that way on the first hour in the Open Championship? No, then is it no meaning? And there's many, many this could take us in many different directions that you could argue.
Speaker 2:True learning is when it's reconnected to nature. It's only when it's done in the closest form to nature. So how do we keep it as close to the first year as possible? So if you can't move that way at the first year, the open next year, then there's really no value doing it now. Unfortunately, the more we come away from nature, the more we devalue that learning experience. So that's often when you'll get the data gets better, but the play gets worse. They've you'll get.
Speaker 2:The data gets better, but the play gets worse. They've been de-skilled through the process, so the nervous system has another layer of distraction. There's more interference, the brain is even more exhausted, beliefs get reinforced, often in a very unhelpful way. So there's a lot of fallout to that as an approach. So when I look at more cyber players and I actually learned this um from a very good player um years ago, really, um, but the idea of acupuncture, we have all these different um acupuncture points in the body and he goes to me and that's great mark, you really have one needle. Where would you put that one needle? My face is such a great question. So, rather than looking at every single acupuncture meridians, as I called within um, within kind of more chinese medicine, um, where would you put that one needle to provide the biggest value? That's what a great question. You can see why this guy's won a major championship and many you know ward number one, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:And that's how those guys still see it what's what?
Speaker 2:what's the single biggest thing today I can do that gives me the most value. So there's a big thing. Years ago, um, it actually came out of british cycling in 2008 in the in the sole olympics, this idea of marginal gains. You know, do one percent better well, that's great, that, um, but that was based on already being an olympic athlete. So the idea of doing one, you know, looking at your mattress and your pillows absolutely of tremendous value based on doing 98 things. Well, already, if you're doing 10% of things great, doing 11% of things great ain't really going to make much of a difference.
Speaker 2:So I kind of say that many people they step over pounds to pick up pennies. They leave the big stuff to kind of pick up these small, pick up the big rocks, not the pebbles in life. So within physiology you can kind of go into some physiology now they're called physiological buffers. So a lot of what you do within the first hour of the day, in the last hour of the day, in some ways helps frame the day. So if you do certain behaviors in the morning, it can really help absorb much of the stress of the day. You kind of give yourself this buffer and very much like in the evening. If you do certain behaviors at night night, it helps mitigate what you've been exposed to through the day. If you don't frame your day that way, that can then create lots of physiological stress.
Speaker 2:So all these ideas around players, I think still in my experience today, they still come back to what's the what's the single biggest area we can explore that provides the biggest value. And even then I can only really um kind of learn these things. Who've been around players and in long my neck continue that, um, a big one for me then comes back to we kind of mentioned it, you know, I think you called it knowledge and experience. I'd almost expand that and say it's knowledge alongside how you experience your exposures would be my add-on to that. So you've been exposed to certain things in life and it's how you chose to remember those exposures. You and I can get exposed to the same thing. You you chose to see it in a great way. I just associate the poor way. So in that, really, in some ways I'm going to jump around too much.
Speaker 2:So I want to kind of finish this part of the question. But it's a bit like the nature versus nurture discussion. The issue is the word versus. That's the definition of being demonized, polarized. What side are you on? It's nature versus um, um? Nurture? No, it's not. It's nature alongside nurture, it's nature alongside what you've been exposed to and how you chose to experience those exposures. That's how we evolve. So, as you know, I I look at this a lot with players. Michael that golf likes to look at how to separate, how to demonize. I look to see what connects players, a good example being look at someone like Scotty Scheffler. His football gets all the attention, but what they don't tell you is the things he does, the same as Rory and Xander, schauffele and Tiger, for example. That's just not a particularly cool story. So what I look at, warren, players, is what connects all these players rather than what separates them.
Speaker 1:I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. That's gold. That's gold. That's really good. You're very kind. And to go back to your question.
Speaker 2:As I said, in my experience with players, we could spend, whether it be an hour with the, the younger guys this trip, or I might spend a day with someone, for example, um, with a certain player. It's how do we compress the experience into three words? So you look at most phrases um, they're three words long. So what's the nike phrase?
Speaker 2:just do it doesn't say just think about it, perhaps explore it. There's a lot of science behind. So the audi, you know, force one dutch technique. Most of these famous phrases have three words. So one of my big approaches is how do we compress our experience today into three words so the brain is more likely to recall three words on the first day of port rush next year. Then this is going to get bad. I'm going to get no chance. That's way too exhaustive on the brain. So one of the big things which I've simply adapted and acquired through being around these players for so many years is based on what you and I have discussed today. How do you compress that into three words, left ear down, knee to ball, whatever, because that creates tremendous meaning in a very playful, very usable, very realistic way which you can perform with rather than yeah yeah, good luck with that as an approach, but what you're there there's real.
Speaker 1:I hope people listen to this and maybe re-listen to this, because there's so much there to unpack and the beauty of coaching and, as data driven as I can be, or you can be, at the end of the day, we're really talking about, in a way, digging it out of the dirt and you know, I I think that a lot of young people think that the answer lies on the internet or through data and, at the end of the day, the word that you've continued to use, that I've written down multiple times and highlighted a couple of times, so I come back to and the word that I think best describes you.
Speaker 1:I'm going to put you in one word instead of three, but the word that I would use is explore, or to be curious, or to to be OK, not knowing what the solution is, but comfortable and learning what it isn't. And I think that we've really lost that ability to go out there with the shag bag of balls and go, hey, today I'm going to figure out how to make the ball work right to left and then, once I do that, I'm going to make it high right to left, like we. I don't see a lot of young, good junior players who are willing to go out there and get it wrong to learn how to do it right. I see a lot of young people who go out there and make two or three mistakes and then immediately think they need to FaceTime me to get the answer to the problem, and that's not to your point. That's just not how we learn. It would be nice, but it's not.
Speaker 2:I think one of the main priorities, especially younger people, is you create an environment that's very safe to fail with. Fail with it, you know, failure is. Even babies don't see it as failure. The adult defines it as failure, not the child. They see it as the exploration. It's that kind of you know a lot of guys look at everest, which is the issue. They try and climb everest. No, what's the next step needed to climb everest? So babies take a much more iterative approach to learning. What's the next step needed to feed myself? Not, I need to feed myself by a certain age. So I think, um what you said, there's a great value that we I mean you look at how science. For me, science has evolved and has also devolved in some areas that we now need science to prove that what we knew 50 years ago was true, which is madness the more science evolves, the more it takes us back to nature and we now need um so, so you look at it, I'll give you three examples of that.
Speaker 2:Um john daly knew in the 80s you want to hit the ball a long way something, so think about long and fast. We now need papers in science to tell us to hit the ball a long way, so think about long and fast. Well, he knew that intuitively. 40 years ago now, gary Player wore different size shoes. He knew the value of ground reaction forces. We now need force plates that have the influence of ground reaction forces.
Speaker 2:Lee Trevino, the idea of the 3D flat spot figured out back in the 60s. The idea of the long flat spot was of value as far as being reliable. We now need 3D motion capture systems to tell us that through the 3D flat spots of value. So the more science evolves it just kind of validates what we knew 50 years ago was true the more it reconnects with the nation. Staggeringly, of all these things, we need any science to prove that nature's good for us, which is just mad. We now need to have a paper to tell us that nature's good for us, which is just staggering. So the guys like daily um dary play.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you and I could go through multiple examples intuitively new, and this is the issue with many people these days. We need external validation. I'm one of my many, many philosophies is the inner voice invariably knows the answer. If you were left alone, michael would most likely find the answer. But we need external validation because a lot of guys don't like thinking anymore. But that's a whole different discussion. So it's demanding for you to explore, you know, figure out, to make sense of why you feel what you feel, to figure out why you see what you see. So a lot of guys just get this external validation these days and they wonder why, um, they don't advance in the way they'd like to.
Speaker 1:It's funny that you say this, because I'm constantly I tell people I swear I think more of the things I learned through force plates do more to validate the people that came before me than to discredit them and I say that all the time and I mean it, I really do think that's true than to discredit them, and I say that all the time and I mean it, I really do think that's true.
Speaker 2:And I've also been on record and I do it all the time.
Speaker 1:But I've got a goodie here. I've got a tailor-made R7 Superquad TP one of the great driver heads of all time and I hit this with my juniors all the time when I play golf with them and they think I'm crazy. And the thing that's crazy is that this 2007 driver goes the exact same distance as my 2024 driver. That's the latest and greatest of everything, and drivers haven't gotten any better. But we need a $26,000 launch monitor to tell us that. You know so to your point. You know the science. You know there's been good science. You're going to appreciate this.
Speaker 1:I made sure to get this one out for you Alistair Cochran the search for the perfect swing, first edition, by the way, that's, that's one of my prized ones right there, um, but you know a lot of what's in that book that was written in nine or, uh, yes, written and published in 1968, a lot of that information is held up, and something that they said at the World Scientific Congress of Golf that I always appreciate is that good science endures, and that's really. We didn't know how to do the experiments and we didn't know how to do the studies back in the day when we were figuring this out. But I truly believe that if we had known how to do the studies, we would have found a lot of the same answers that we find today, that now we have all the technology to do all the research. So it's I really agree with what you're saying it's how do we get back to? I think this is important, right? How do people, when people do well, play well, perform well? What space are they in?
Speaker 1:Well, to steal from Gary Gilchrist. He says they got to be childlike and they've got to be creative and playful and free of judgment, and I think there's a lot of good science that supports that. So, if we're talking about that, how do we get to that place on the first tee at the open, if we never allow ourselves to explore that place day to day life? I just it's. It's wild to me. Everybody just thinks it's X's and O's and it really couldn't be farther from the truth.
Speaker 2:I mean there's some very good things you said there. Look, you say Einstein, that he can improve his theories 100 years ago. We now need science to prove that Einstein was right 100 years ago. So there's wonderful advancements in the resources we have now that just validate that what he did 100 years ago is true and I think what you said there is so true that very few movement problems are actually movement problems.
Speaker 2:So a lot of what you'll see with players will display as a movement issue. So they will have certain movements that maybe aren't helpful and not advantageous for whatever way you define that, but very few of the actual drivers are movement issues. So to kind of again very coarsely, kind of explain this that when life is good and very big players are performing well and there's a distraction within life, they normally then or they move poorly, but they hide behind the movement is the issue. It's the same movement that made you win last week, that made you miss the cut the following week, so it's not the movement issue. There'd be something within life which is distracting them, but they hide behind those movement issues and very few movement issues are ever truly movement problems. The example of the first guy I shared today. That's a belief system he has. Um. That's led to him to then create the stress traps in his spine.
Speaker 1:So for sure, it displays movement issue and there's a mechanical um dysfunction I mean, can we talk about that for just for just a moment, because it's something that I think needs to be brought up. And I'm not somebody with the background to address this, but I think you are, and you know I do a good amount of traveling across the world at this point with the force plates, and that's kind of what I like to do and that's kind of how I like to do and that's kind of how I like to look at things. And when you were talking earlier about looking at how somebody moves, you know I like looking at the things that I can't see with my eyes, which are the forces, pressures and torques. It's just, it gives me a good understanding of why they're trying to do what they're doing with the rest of the golf swing.
Speaker 1:But, with that being said, traveling as much as I do, I tend to see a lot of high end junior golfers who come in and they're really high achieving.
Speaker 1:They're ranked high on the Rolex list.
Speaker 1:They're, you know, putting up these benchmarks to where, at 15, 16 years of age, they're creating 170 mile an hour of ball speed and they're doing all these things that, from the outside looking in, are very, very good, but at the same time they're complaining of having pain and discomfort and disruption in their body, and it tends to for a lot of juniors that I've seen.
Speaker 1:It tends to be an issue within the tro labrum and it tends to be because at that age a lot of them haven't went through those growth cycles that you alluded to earlier and their body isn't physically prepared for the forces and torques and pressures that they're going to apply to it to create those speeds. So I just I think that, like you're saying, a fractured spine, I mean that it's a very serious injury, like we're talking about the spinal column and I know it's like I get it. It's not life-threatening but, to your point, it's also not normal behavior and there's more and more of this because people are trying to get to the end of the book instead of trying to enjoy reading the book.
Speaker 2:It seems like yeah, I mean that's. That's a huge question. I'll attempt to kind of go through that. Do you agree though?
Speaker 1:Do you see a lot more injuries than we used to see, cause you've been at this longer than I have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they've changed. I mean, like I said, we've normalized it these days. If you go back, say, just say to the nineties, which for me still feels like yesterday and it was a very you know, the demands are different, the schedules are different, the amount of events are different. So you know, you really can't compare generations. It's just about now, that's all you can really compare. It's kind of you versus you today really, but it's certainly very different now.
Speaker 2:You could argue that we're different types of athletes than what we were 30 years ago. It's staggering to think we need to ever go to a gym. That shows how far we've devolved as a human race. That we have to go and train these days because it shows what we don't do most of the time. So the fact you have to go to a gym is staggering. I mean, the best athletes never train because they are doing it every day, just in life. But we have to go to a gym to train because for the rest of the day we're doing nothing. And that is, I think, the bigger question, the fact that we have to go and actually train and exercise. The world exercise didn't exist 100 years ago because that was how they lived their life for every day. So we've invented exercise as a word because it shows that the devolution that we've gone through in recent times. So are they more advanced athletes?
Speaker 2:In some areas, yes, um, but in many other areas, no, um, so you get a lot of guys, um, and to kind of look at that two ways, um, the part of the force discussion which is often never told it's a very convenient truth in some ways, or very inconvenient truth in some ways which is kind of never told. There's three parts of the force discussion. You know the idea of force production, how well you can produce force. Then force application, the part which is often very conveniently, kind of often kept very quiet, is in force absorption. You have to absorb what you produce. So how these guys absorb and force these days is probably just not that advantageous, not that helpful. So really what you look at is how they move is of value. Of course it is, but actually how they move to produce that value is of a lot more value. So I'll give an example around some of the force plate stuff which I use as well, the kind of clues in its name is called ground reaction force. Now, for sure it's the local reaction of the foot on the floor. But there's a much bigger hierarchical response um, so many many things happen before force is produced beliefs, our anatomy, our physiology of the environment, our values, um, energy systems, the time all sorts of things happen before a force is produced. So an example I saw today a guy had a certain profile through the floor but it was being driven through the adaptation he has in his neck, which is actually enforced because he wears glasses, specs. So because of the disruption in his visual system he had to then almost reorientate his neck and head to kind of make the glasses work. Then created a response through the foot.
Speaker 2:So, crudely speaking, within the nervous system, the feet normally follow the eye. Our eyes drive our behaviors. Kind of, where we look is where we move is the kind of again, the very coarse way of seeing this. It's called hand-eye coordination. For a reason it's not called hand-foot coordination. So the hand will follow the eye, the foot then follows the hand and that's the kind of loose way of looking at movements.
Speaker 2:So where we look is where we move, the hand follows the eye, the feet normally follow the hands. That's the kind of the hierarchy, in a very kind of coarse way, of how we move. So often many foot based disruptions are actually more visual and hand-based movements. I got myself in trouble about this a while ago, but you know what, whatever, I'm a big enough boy to kind of uh, I kind of really should lucy be called hand reaction force, if you think about it, because the feet just follow the hand. So what you see is where the feet is in response to how they move the hands through space, and you can probably imagine how that irritated some people. But that was never meant that way. It was just a fun observation. I I don't think you're wrong.
Speaker 1:I don't think I. I, as the force plate guy, I, I really don't think you're wrong. I mean I, I truly. There's something that I'd like to talk to you about another time, because it's once again. We don't want to both get in trouble. I'll let you be the guy to go down with that, but I okay, you know what, let's just do it, I believe.
Speaker 2:I'm on the big boy, michael. I can you know whatever, I'm pretty chilled about life.
Speaker 1:So I believe the problem and and please forgive me, I am trained to myself, I don't have a formal education. I'm going to butcher a lot of things, but stick with me I truly believe that the reason that most golfers struggle is because they're so busy doing exactly what they did the very first time they ever touched a golf club. And the very first time they ever touched a golf club they probably looked at somebody very familiar with them and said OK, what do I do? And that's somebody very familiar to them said you see, what you do here is you take that club and you hit that ball. And that's what people do. And they hit the ball with the club and somebody close to them applauds them and recognizes them and forevermore they now know how to hit the ball with the club.
Speaker 1:But that isn't the same task. That is golf, and we have to do a lot more than just hit the ball with the stick to play high level golf. And the issue is that the level of thinking I don't think really moves past. Move the stick, and to your point, I'm so glad you said that because I truly hadn't thought of this until you just said it. But to your point, the hand follows the eyes, and what's everybody trying to do? They're trying to get the golf club back away from the ball around their body.
Speaker 1:And guess what their foot does? It follows it, and then everything externally rotates, and there's just no way that you're ever, ever, ever going to use any ground reaction forces whatsoever, because what I like to talk about is the ground action force. What is that so, if we are in a position where we can't create an action, how are we ever going to take advantage of the reaction? It's an impossibility. So I'm so glad you said that, because I I think, as somebody who really thinks that the ground is a really important thing, to look at it really bad. Ground reaction forces typically stem from the body, or, in this case, the hands, we could say, or the eyes moving incorrectly, which give us bad cueing yeah so that I mean invariably, if there's a disruption through those force profiles, the real again what's what's the driver is normally there's.
Speaker 2:There's an issue with the intention. What is it exactly you're trying to do so you can look at it doesn't always go both ways.
Speaker 2:You can improve the profiles, like the idea of de-skilling around the ground. Reaction forces, whatever it might be, doesn't always shift their behaviors, their beliefs, but if you improve their intention it almost always improves the forces. So within physiology is very well defined physiology. Michael, you have two choices in life either change your behaviors or change your expectations. That's all you can ever do in life. We either have to change your behavior, which, um, or you either change the expectation. So an example being that physiology kind of goes behaviors, which is essentially control by beliefs, exercise, nutrition, supplementation, then an intervention.
Speaker 2:So it always starts with what's my involvement, what's my contribution to the problem? What can I do, as Michael and mark, to contribute and resolve the issue I experience? Then, how can I use training and nutrition to support that supplements are called supplements, are not called replacements. How can I supplement them in balances through, say, my nutritional demands and then, occasionally may need to be an intervention? What we've done so well is we've inverted that in recent years. First approach is do an intervention, surgery, an external device, like an orthotic, for example. Then I take a few supplements.
Speaker 2:Do you mean I need to train? What do you mean? It's my fault. That's how we've become programmed. What do you mean? It's my fault, and I say that to many players. It may not be your fault, but it's your responsibility. It's not your fault. You've been exposed to poor information, but it's your responsibility to deal with it, because it circles around again. It doesn't matter what intervention you have. If your behaviors are not advantageous, you train and your nutrition's off. You cannot intervene. A poor behavior I can't out-train. If your behaviors are not advantageous, you train and your nutrition's off. You cannot out-intervene a poor behavior, you can't out-train that. And so it then really comes back again too. It may not be your fault You've been exposed to whatever but it's your responsibility to deal with it, because that's the only choice you'll ever have either change your behaviors or shift your expectations in life.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's it, that's all you, that's all you can do, and it's. It's interesting. You know, the intervention is is, if we apply that to golf, trying to keep it kind of golf related, right, you know, the intervention is lesson after lesson, after lesson and that doesn't work. So we're onto the next coach and it's it's just this constant search for more information and more information and more data. And you know, I I think we're probably two of the people uh, that if they said who are the golf data freaks, we're probably showing up on a lot of those lists. Uh, and there's two golf data freaks here that are basically saying you know the best thing, you know. I'll give you a perfect example.
Speaker 1:I get a lot of phone calls to our facility because our juniors and our players have a lot of success. So a lot of parents call us and want us to work with their children and they tell me about how little Timmy is like super excited about golf and just can't play enough golf and loves golf and loves to practice. And I'm like that's great. And they're like what do you think we should do? And I'm like I think you should do whatever you're doing, cause it sounds like it's working perfectly and they're like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's excited, but we want him to get better. Well, give him time He'll get better.
Speaker 1:And it's like we just we don't, we don't ever want to allow for the development to kind of happen on its own. We, we want this, you said it earlier. We want this external validation that we're getting better, we're doing the right thing or that we're in good hands, as as State Farm would want us to know, but like there's just so much more to the learning process that we're kind of leaving out and then we act like, because we have all these tools, that it's gotten better. And in reality, I think the tools most of the time cause more confusion than ever get to a point to where they add clarity, let alone add value I think what you said there.
Speaker 2:There's a word used there which is so valuable that we want him to get better. But what does he want? Do you ever ask your son? Does he want to get better? So whose session is this? Your son's or yours? Is the parents? So that's the issue. You often see here that, um, whose aspiration is this? You, the parents, or my daughter? As an example, my daughter loves gymnastics. I'm a very frustrated, very old gymnast, but my daughter loves gymnastics and it's her experience. It's her she decides if she wants to go, not me or my wife. Um, the role of a parent. Drop him off, pick him up, give him the opportunity to fail in a very safe way, but you don't see it fail. You see, it's part of the exploration of evolution. So you know the idea we want him to get better. Well, so it's about you then.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:When was this not your son's session? Ask your son. He might just be happy doing this. He made the assumption everyone comes to see him and wants to win the Open. Just likes playing with his mates and having a good time.
Speaker 1:I have a young student right now. He's one of my favorites. He's like 13 years old and I first met him not that long I mean, it's been a few months, but not that long ago and he, you know, wasn't very good, wasn't, didn't have a lot of awareness as to what he needed to do to hit the golf ball, that kind of stuff young player, not a lot of experience Um, and when I talked to him and was trying to ask him, like you know, what his goals were and what his aspirations were and things like that, he was like, yeah, I just don't want to play tournaments. And I was like, okay, cool, like tell me more about that. And he's like, yeah, I really don't want to talk about it, but like I don't want to play tournaments. And I was like, okay, that's totally fine with me. I was like, does that mean that we can't still get better at golf? He's like, no, I want to get better at golf, but like I want to beat my friends, but I don't really care about playing in tournaments and it's.
Speaker 1:It's just really, I thought it was so and it's not abnormal behavior. That's normal behavior. But given how things are in our society now, it was a very unique perspective from a young man and I found it really refreshing. And the funny thing is is he's learned so quickly and he's really progressed much quicker than I would have expected him to at this point, based off the benchmarks that we have and things like that. But it's almost like this lack of pressure to go out and compete in a tournament next week or two weeks from now or whatever the case may be. This lack of pressure man, it's just like opened up the creativity for him and he's been able to go out there and explore and learn and not have the pressures on him to like live up to this expectation. It's really it's. It's been a really cool little experiment without being an experiment I mean, you look at it now and who creates expectations?
Speaker 2:it you, me, the parent, whoever might be, and I know I remember years ago. Um, as it was the european tour before then, the dp board tour guy knew very well, like finishing second every week didn't want the stress of winning. This wasn't why you performed. You like finishing third, pick up a ton of cash, go no stress. They want the stress of winning.
Speaker 1:It's true, right Like that happens, winning is a whole other thing, like being there and winning are two different things.
Speaker 2:It's the idea of solutions and trades.
Speaker 1:Okay, you win an event.
Speaker 2:It just creates a different trade-off. Then you have to deal with the expectations of press and that kind of stuff and different travel demands and whatnot. Um, so that's, that's a big, it's a big consideration. Um going, going back to that young man again, whose session is it? Who owns the learning? And do they own the learning or does it us? Um, a question we don't ask enough of players is why are you here? Why are you here today?
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean one of my favorite questions.
Speaker 2:Why are you here really? And so that's it. There's a tremendous difference to kind of doing golf and playing golf. Many guys can do golf but not play golf, so I'm always very mindful in any session um as to why you're here. Where's the.
Speaker 1:So if you had one needle that you had to put into the golf instruction space, what would be the needle that you would want to put in and be kind of known for at this point and I know it's probably going to change throughout your career and things like that it always does but if you had to stick your one needle in golf instruction right now and go, this is the thing I wish would change, because I'm seeing it be the most disruptive. What would that thing be and it could be either positive or negative, it could go either way. But what would be that thing be and it could be either positive or negative, it could go either way. But what would be that one needle?
Speaker 2:Can I divide into three areas? Can it be kind of one?
Speaker 1:needle on each. I'll give you three areas. I'll give you three. I'll give you three.
Speaker 2:I would say absolutely within our physiology, our belief systems. You know beliefs drive behaviors. You behave this way because of a belief you have. So we spend more time just kind of you know, pressing pause, you know, breathing out, go to the out breath, the idea of kind of, if in doubt, breathe out that kind of stuff and just kind of zoom out slightly. So too many guys look at a blade of grass, not the whole lawn, just kind of zoom out. So the more you zoom out, the more the problem that reduces, and that's it. Start to explore the beliefs that you have. Why do you believe what you believe to be true?
Speaker 2:In many guys a lot of people talk a bit like the media. I'm sure it's the same in the US and England. They give this sensational headline and then beneath it, provide the context. So if you never read a headline, you'd have a very different definition of the story. You'd hope the media report accurately. You'd read the story and then perceive it very different. But the headline creates this. How You'd read the? You'd hope the media report accurately. You'd read the story and then perceive it very different. But the headline creates this how do you play today? Oh, it's terrible. What I was so bad today. What'd you shoot? 68? Wait a second. It's just kind of slow down and well, cut line was all good, played really nicely around the turn. Had a couple of bad shots at the end at the context. So belief systems for sure. I think you know. When we shift our beliefs, our behaviors change. When our behaviors change, then everything changes more within the nervous system, for sure, the influence of vision.
Speaker 2:So again, the eyes drive our behaviors um where we look is where we move in life.
Speaker 2:Um, so really how we use vision in particular is it is very much, um, to give you some kind of, like you said, half the brain is connected to vision and movement. About 80% of our sensory feedback comes from vision and we normally respond about 80 milliseconds after we've received that kind of piece of feedback. So vision is by far our biggest, unless someone has obviously a visual impairment. Um, our vision is our, is our largest sensory um um stimulus and then within more the movement side say of um that the more extrinsic biomechanics, for sure, the pelvis, um, it's kind of loosely connected with our center of mass. It's kind of round about L3, like the third lumbar vertebrae, truly speaking, again depends on frame shape they're called helixes and it depends on the shape of the human frame and the depth of the. It's called pelvis inclination, which is the lumbar spine relative to the pelvis. So, allowing for all these individual markers, truly speaking, our center of mass is about L3. So when the pelvis moves well, our central mass is about L3. So when the pelvis moves well, loosely speaking, the human moves well. So you could actually thread those three together.
Speaker 2:You look at what is the basis of human movement? It's how the hands and eyes coordinate the best position of the pelvis. That is the basis of how we move. So almost all. But there'll be exceptions. For sure, and I'm sure your viewers and listeners are very, very intellectual. They will find these exceptions. But, typically speaking, every movement in life is how the hands and eyes coordinate the best position of pelvis. That's how we've evolved since, you know, day one of human, um, no kind of mankind, way back when, um, so that is, those three needles vision, hand-eye coordination or you could say beliefs in this case and the pelvis. So when those three align, it's normally a very good day. When there's a disruption in those three, it's very it's a long day would vision tie into overall neck mobility and health?
Speaker 1:would you, would you say that?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's a very kind of circle of discussion. So if someone has a neck issue which is again we're being very I don't like to have a reductionist view of life when we filter it so heavily we lose all the good stuff. So when you heavily filter anything it's like milk. For example, it's called dead milk. When you hugely pasteurize and homogenize milk it becomes dead milk. There's no enzyme or nutrient value because all the good stuff's been taken out. So what you drink is often referred to as kind of dead milk. And so you know we like to reduce things in this in this day and age, um, which I think devalues the intellect or the discussion then. But typically speaking, if there's a thoracic, there's a thorax issue. There really was a cervical spine issue so often when there's a neck issue there was an eye issue and also vice versa. So there's that lovely kind of circular interaction between if there's been a neck adaptation, which is certainly what you see as you mature through life, as we advance in years, we often get exposed to gravity. More we get we've been exposed to gravity, more Our neck gets kind of compressed down and forwards. Rotation starts up at the top of the cervical spine. Kind of C1 is where we start rotation from. So for you and I to kind of move this way sequentially, that had to come through the upper part of the cervical spine. When we live in these very kind of compressed positions, we almost close down the ability to move them through our cervical spine. So it's got the axis of rotation with anatomy. We then start to rotate more around C67 with this part of the neck, which is why many older people get neck pain, because they've changed the axis of where rotation happens. Then they start adapting different segments. So, examples being, we adapt other areas to move around those constraints we have through, in this case our neck. So we often adapt the pale, we adapt the foot as a way of moving around those neck constraints. So we then start seeing those profiles through the floor again. Really, what they represent is how we adapt. So any value you look at, invariably whether it be through 3d force plates, launch monitors, even statistics on a golf course all they really reveal is how we are adapting to the constraints placed upon us environmental constraints, um, emotional constraints, um, anatomical constraints. So it's how we're adapting. So really, what they reveal is the approach used to move around the imbalances that we have and so, yeah, neck in the eye, you really can't look at them independent of each other.
Speaker 2:It's quite common you see a really good kind of scans from a, from the cloud view. You often see a skull looking like this where one eye relative sits forwards because the the torsion through the neck. So then they've adapted a neck based on a visual disruption and or vice versa, um, so when you start looking at the head I mean examples again being that a sight and touch, all of our senses are in our head smell, taste, sound, vision, you could argue, touches on our head, because we actually perceive in the brain that the mechanoreceptors on our skin that detect change in pressure and temperature, for example, we still perceive it through the brain. So when there's kind of eye head based issues, that's the whole sensory system being disrupted.
Speaker 2:Um, not many people play barefoot, which is a different discussion. Um, so when we put shoes on our feet, we then put a layer of separation between us and the earth. We lose that sensory feedback through the feet because of what's what we kind of, what he's playing, um. So still, I had neck movement. It's very unusual that you want to be real, I mean beyond generic. So I apologize in advance for this, but if someone's neck and head are moving well, invariably the human moves well.
Speaker 1:If there's something through eye, neck and head, kind of good luck moving well no, that I mean it makes a ton of sense, and I've met some really smart people who are great applicators of the human body and a lot of guys that I know who are really forward thinking and kind of trying to, you know, look at areas that aren't being looked at right now, are looking at the neck and the head and how that aligns, because, to your point, you know, our rotation really starts there and if, if we have, you know, it's not uncommon now for people to to have poor posture because of cell phones and everybody looking down on their lap all the time, or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 2:It even goes back to the type of food. You want to be really esoteric now. It even goes back to the type of food you eat. These days A lot of movement issues are actually dental-based, tooth-based issues. Really, we eat soft food. The idea of ultra-processed food we have crowding through the jaw. Our jaws are getting smaller because we eat very softly. We don't chew anymore, we get crowns with the teeth.
Speaker 2:Um, we then get changes through the jaw. The jaw is kind of, loosely speaking, connected into where rotation happens with the neck. So often when the jaw, for example, we saw food, we get something called an overbite, but our upper teeth are in front of our lower jaw. Head gets shifted forwards. The pelvis gets put into like an anterior um anteverted position. Center of mass goes forwards. We see pressure on the toes at address. So you'll see through, say, when I use my force plate. Hey, the pressure sits forwards.
Speaker 2:To be esoteric, this what drove that was the food you've eaten the last two or three years because you've changed the structure of the jaw. So a lot of a lot of movement issues these days are actually dental based issues and even the research now around kind of dental hygiene almost I think it's something like depends on the research you read. Anything from kind of 50 to 70 percent of known conditions in life now connect back to a dental based hygiene issue. To give an example every, every organ in our body connects into a tooth. So when you have a tooth issue it then disrupts the correspondent organ the liver, the pancreas, the spleen, the, the, the kidneys, for example all connecting to our teeth through those meridians in our body. So if you have, say, a root canal or certain fillings, for example, that then goes into then it disrupts then the corresponding organ wow, look at that.
Speaker 1:We went from talking about golf to talking about how dental problems are really the cause of most movement I look a lot at.
Speaker 2:I look a lot at jaws and I one of my first questions is any dental work in recent times really? Um, so someone's saying then, yeah, well, I very rarely will I not ask someone in a session about their dental history. Um, so when you start to look at then, what teeth in the jaw we've done, which is why we have these very narrow jaws and this crowd in some people's teeth these days and it really goes back to this very soft palatable. I wouldn't call it food. It's more edible product or it's kind of edible chemicals. In some ways is these manufactured things we choose to choose to consume. Is not food as I see food. Um, we now have these very narrow, um, these dental base issues which then create neck issues, visual issues, spine issues, feet issues. Yeah, it becomes um, um, they pretty huge as far as the influence on what we do.
Speaker 1:That's. Yeah, I mean that's, it's nuts and it's. I'm just glad that we've got to a point, and I don't know that we we really got to any points today, but I'm glad that we are. I'm glad that we as an industry are getting to a place I should say not a point, but a place. I'm glad that we as an industry are getting to a place I should say not a point, but a place to where we can explore.
Speaker 1:Uh and I think that's kind of the theme of of today's podcast is, you know, exploring ideas and how things are related to other things.
Speaker 1:Um is very, very important and you know, I love the fact that there's more people coming into golf that aren't just coming at it from a golf perspective and are coming from a very educated place, and we can start learning more about these things and we can learn about how a jawline can influence rotation because of where it's connected at the base of the neck.
Speaker 1:So I mean, I think all of this is only going to lead at some point to where we have some experience with this new information, this new knowledge, and then we can create some wisdom with it and actually figure out where the application is, because I think that's the hardest part. Right Is, at the end of the day, you have to kind of dip your hands into all that you know and pull out an answer to tell somebody what we think is going to be the one needle for them that's going to make the biggest amount of change with the least amount of disruption. And that's that's really the art and beauty of coaching in a lot of ways is is being able to realize like there's a lot of different ways this could go, but this is the way we're choosing to go because it's our best, uh, best educated guests that we have available to us I'm absolutely right there.
Speaker 2:It goes back to that knowledge and know-how discussion, how to use the information that you have. And you're very mindful that you know, within um kind of physiology again, that one person's ability is another person's disability. So what helps player A doesn't always help player B and as you always said that very kind of you know, I kind of say that most people that precise questions, the precise approaches and, fortunately, generic approaches often to precise questions. Example I can give you a guy last year I've known since 2013, so I've had the pleasure of seeing him through boys golf in England, to the national program, to Walker Cup, to DP World Tour. Now we started to explore the use of a gum shield. It was a mouth guard, he called it.
Speaker 2:In the US he had a lot of foot pain. He missed a bit of the season through a foot issue. The minute he put his mouth guard in, the foot pain pain went away. The neural tension through his neck was kind of pulling on, uh, the the perineal nerve into his foot. Um, so when we started to realign his jaw and his teeth again through a mouse guard, sorry, um that the nervous system could let go and the kind of foot pain went away. You look to what the the performance markers and say um power production, um heart rateabilities, through his the trackers he used his heart rate variability increase, which is a good thing um his, his performance markers improved. The foot went away through wearing a mouth guard and if I took that approach to some people, they'd walk away thinking I was insane, I should be locked up. So you've got to be very mindful and that's the idea kind of um I say playfully many, many people have great education but they're still idiots, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:So having a good education is not a precursor to being an intellectual, there's a lot of people who fly into Detroit, michigan, and then take a 45-minute car ride over to Ann Arbor to work with me because I have force plates which aren't that common here in the US, and I'm kind of known as the force plate guy and I've spent a lot of time with this and I feel pretty confident in my ability to look at this force plate information and make it applicable to the people in front of me. So I get a lot of people that come here and in my opinion and I'm not trying to be judgmental, but in my opinion these people come to me because they went to everybody else and they didn't get the answer they wanted to get and they think, by coming to me, that they're going to get a new space age answer that's going to solve all of their problems and be what they want to hear. So they, they come into my facility. We do everything that we do. We do some 3d, we do the force plates, we do a launch monitor. Uh, I don't do a ton of assessing, I'm more of a. I want to see them do the task at hand, not see them do something kind of like it. Uh, mentality. But if there are some irregularities that show up, we may do a little bit of assessing based off what we see. And we get all of that done.
Speaker 1:And then the person in front of me is like okay, what do you got? I know you got me a good answer, what is it? And I'm like well, you see, the thing is, is you really do all of your tilting through your pelvis? And what we really need to do is we need to get your pelvis tucked a little better and that's going to allow you to start creating some frontal plane torque and that'll fix a lot of your low point issues. And they're like so you're saying I need to work on my posture? Yep, I'm saying you need to work on your posture.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, no, no, I've heard that before. Somebody already told me that that didn't work. And it's like I hear what you're saying, partner, I do. But to your point, mark, like you can either, you know, change your expectations or change the behavior. And it's like look, dude, if you want to play better golf, then you're going to have to change your behavior. And if you're not willing to tuck your pelvis and like, create some frontal plane torque which is going to help you move low. Point more in front of the ball, then like you're not willing to tuck your pelvis and like create some frontal plane torque which is going to help you move low. Point more in front of the ball, then like you're going to have to change your expectations and you're not going to be a scratch golfer.
Speaker 2:Actually right, I had it. We still live in Orlando at the time before COVID happened. So we kind of went home because of COVID, because of the travel situation. I remember a young lady came to see me once and about I need a different answer. So really my role is not to give you an answer, it's to ask you a better question. So my role was to ask different questions of you.
Speaker 2:I remember saying to her once okay, so we have all that the kind of the feedback on screen. So I said to her if I came to you moving this way, how would you help me? And just the silence she was met with. She couldn't even start to conceptualize that she had to find a way of resolving this. And I remember saying to her dad I was very honest with them. I kind of take the approach, I'm friendly without being their friend. I'm not there to be their friend, but I'm friendly with them.
Speaker 2:But maybe there's the issue she has no ability that when it goes wrong on the first tee of a collegiate event she can't phone me up to problem solve. So I said, really, first tee of a collegiate event, you can't throw me up to problem solve. So I said really my role is not. I'm not a problem solver, I'm not a problem finder, a problem creator. I need to create an issue for you then to go and resolve, because that's when the learning happens. You find a way of resolving the issue that I created.
Speaker 2:So really my role was to ask better questions of you, which is what the information does. To kind of go back to what we discussed earlier today um, and really, if I came even that way, how would you solve this? And they look at you, some guys, and then suddenly you can't keep quiet. It just is complete um. It's almost like a complete um release in some ways, complete liberation of being able to think. I remember. Um, again, I'm, I can. I'm the most probably chilled, or, at least I hope, very humble guy out there. And a lady came over from the US a few weeks ago, plays on the LPG tour. She came over to England to see me for a couple of days. She goes. You're the first guy, marcus, ever actually let me think. I was like I need to understand that more. Yeah, she goes. You're the only guy that has ever actually let me think.
Speaker 1:I think that's a big compliment.
Speaker 2:That says a lot about you, reggie. I mean you look at it. I said that's nice. I mean, when you give information, it really exposes two things your movement history and your learning history. So whenever I give you any kind of feedback, two things get exposed now the learning history you've had and the movement history you've done. So people that are very exploratory movers, they're very movement diverse and they've been coached rather than taught, which is a whole different. Are you a coach, teacher or instructor? They're very different to me, reveals much about that. So what, when you give information, you would expose them, both their movement and their coaching and movement history. And so I said maybe that was possible. What happened there? Just expose what you've been experienced to getting the idea of kind of nature alongside nurture well, I think you've.
Speaker 1:You've really done a nice job of kind of going back to what you were talking about with your I'm going to call it your diversified single needle, in which you talked about the belief system, how the eyes are interpreting information and then how the pelvis is understood. But going back to the belief system, you know, going back to the analogy I used earlier, to where somebody close to you told you to hit a ball with a club, you know, the reason that we believe what we believe for most of us is because a loved one told us and why would we not trust that loved one? And then the real issue becomes later on down the road when we need to maybe change something that was told that that loved one. And then the real issue becomes later on down the road when we need to maybe change something that was told that that loved one shared with them. Now there's like really this conflict and challenging that idea Well, was my grandpa a bad guy?
Speaker 1:Because he told me no, no, no, like he just didn't know what he didn't know and was just more or less repeating, probably, what he had been told or what he knew.
Speaker 1:So I think, going back to the overall theme again.
Speaker 1:You know, even if Grandpa Joe told you something, it's okay to wonder why Grandpa Joe told you that, and it's okay to ask why, and it's okay to be curious.
Speaker 1:And I really think that if you are somebody listening to this and you're listening to this for the purpose of trying to improve your ability as a golfer I think the number one skill set you have to go about kind of eliciting and making change with is your ability to be curious and to ask more questions, because Dr Mark Boll is by far and away one of the smartest people I've met in the golf industry Uh, definitely one of the more influential people I've met in the industry and the one thing that he shares that he doesn't know yet and he hasn't heard this yet is that he shares something with another one of my mentors, uh, and that mentor was Mr Mike Adams, and Mike always says kind of the same thing in a different way, which is ask better questions like ask questions.
Speaker 1:Questions are how we learn. Failure is part of the game. No matter what you do, you're always going to occur some kind of failure, unless what you're doing isn't really worth doing. So I really think getting people in a less judgment based position to where they can be more curious and free and exploratory is always going to put people in the best place possible to improve their abilities as a golfer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think kind of what you said. There is so true that who you're trying to influence is the player's biggest influence, so you figure out very quickly who is it. I could give perhaps the most valuable information, but if their biggest influence doesn't see value in it, they'll always do what the biggest influence says them to do. So, really, one of your main roles in life is to figure out who is that player. Could be mom, could be dad, could be brother, could be best mate, could be, could be anybody. Doesn't matter who it is who is the player's biggest influence and that's how you have to, who you need to influence, because if they say do it, that player will do it and so you have that you need to have the trust, the relationship, which you can take a long time to develop, and they'll always look at um.
Speaker 2:That will always be reinforced by their biggest influence in life well, I know you've had a busy day coaching.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's a little later where you're at and I really appreciate the time, so I'm gonna go ahead and let us sign off here, because I'm pretty convinced that you have a long night ahead of you because that teddy bear holding the golf club over your right shoulder if I, if I saw that thing while I was trying to sleep, I would probably be a little bit concerned so I think you might have a difficult time getting a good night's sleep with that in the room.
Speaker 2:I had more issues with the mosquitoes. I left the doors to the hotel room open last night, so I was more concerned with the mozzies coming and biting me at whatever time it was. But I've never met this picture. I've stayed in this place a few times over the years.
Speaker 1:I like it. It's my lack of awareness I have to. Well, I like it. But thank you again, doctor, I really appreciate it. Uh, if you're interested in learning more about dr mark bull, you certainly can find more information, not only on him, but he has an amazing app that you can download and use for understanding your golf swing a little bit better, at least measuring some different things within the golf swing. I can't't recommend it enough. It's Bull 3D Golf, highly recommend, and I also don't want to be remiss because I just saw this today and going to be attending, but you might have to help me, doc, because I don't have it in front of me. I apologize, but you are doing an education event in Orlando. I got it right here. So you are doing a golf performance evolution 2025, january 20th at Orange County National. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, with a very dear friend of mine, dr Brendan McLaughlin. So Brendan and I have worked together for many, many years one of my dearest friends and so Brendan and I did one last year which was very kindly received, and so we're going to do it, and this one will be more around actually doing lots of live sessions during the day so people get to experience it, get to have a session with Brendan and myself. Worse, they get to observe it and be actively involved in the session. So there'll be a little bit of a discussion around the latest observations in the last 12 months and Brendan and I but it'd be a very live interact today which we're very excited about. So if anyone's um, if you can go to my instagram page the link is in the bio to that and it's um. Brendan is just a, the most wonderful human one of my very, very dear friends and I encourage anyone to spend time with him as well and so hopefully be a fun day. So I appreciate you kind of referencing that yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm going to be a little more forward than you were. If, if you're listening to this, you should go. It's going to be very, very good. If you are a coach or somebody that is helping other golfers in any kind of capacity, I think this is very well worth your time and a great investment in your education. So, once again, january 20th, right around the PGA show.
Speaker 1:So for those of you that are going to be down there for that, you can go ahead and stop at this as well, but honestly, without trying to sound like I'm plugging too hard, I definitely think this is a great way to invest some money into your education and getting some real good data and science that is going to kind of support you and becoming a better coach. So, once again, thank you to Dr Mark Bull for being on the podcast. I certainly appreciate his time and insights and thought that this was definitely a very dense episode, so I'm very, very thankful for him for that, as well as being thankful for you, the listener. I appreciate all the support and everybody listening, so please be sure to subscribe and download to this podcast and, until next time, keep grinding.
